Carver is a wonderful place, but basketball teams could use a new place to play home games.

I was at the game on Wed. night. CHA hosted one of the biggest crowds I have seen for a while, and they were really loud. And, the students are on break.
The directional team from Illinois was actually pretty good. The had two Iowa kids on the team. One was a point guard and scored 20. He was lightning fast and shot the 3 effectively. He went off on us the second half so Fran ran double teams on him. He was really good off ball screens. Even Ulis could not stop him. I think he was from a small town. Wapellow (sp?)maybe? There were a bunch of his home town fans in attendance. The other kid also started. He was from Bettendorf.
Iowa beat them with one of the most impressive transition games I have seen them play. Lay ups, dunks, 3’s, ally oops, galore. Great fun with wild cheers from the fans.
Up by 20 at the half, then Western played us pretty even in the second half. Fran used lots of combinations.
I looked desperately for blue hairs, but no luck. Lots of young families. Who has more fun than kids?
I think the crowd last night would have been totally unable to understand some of the posters’ blasting CHA. Just sayin’. Amber Bock on tap at Tailgaters post game. Good night!
 
Fryowa said:
What they need to do is build a new arena for basketball and keep Carver for wrestling.

8,000-10,000 seats with a closer student section. With a new arena you could do that without pissing the donors off because you could have premium box seating with 2-3 decks.

Re: the naming, call it Chris Street Court and name the arena The Fieldhouse.
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I like about 10K for basketball, with more vertical seating and levels. Blue hairs 2nd level yet close to the court, and younger crowd down low courtside.
 
You and Fry need to go to a home game against a BT team and do a head count. I have been a season ticket holder as a grad student and a young guy, then raised kids and worked lots of hours before coming back for Alfraud, Lackluster, and now Fran. The blue hair thing is a flat out myth. I am old and don’t have much hair at all, but I am not blind. Put up or shut up on the blue hair rant.
 
HuckFinn said:
You and Fry need to go to a home game against a BT team and do a head count. I have been a season ticket holder as a grad student and a young guy, then raised kids and worked lots of hours before coming back for Alfraud, Lackluster, and now Fran. The blue hair thing is a flat out myth. I am old and don’t have much hair at all, but I am not blind. Put up or shut up on the blue hair rant.
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There are probably becoming fewer of them as COVID is keeping people home and they are getting older. But they typically sit on the other side of you, behind the teams benches which is where I've always argued the students should be sitting. Carver is the only place I've ever been told to sit down but that was 10 years ago. The last game I attended I didn't pay much attention to the age of the crowd but it wasn't well attended in the first place. You used to be able to see them all on TV.

I'll never forget the time I attended a NIT game early in Frans tenor. The crowd was different, one of the best I've ever been apart of in Carver.
 
HuckFinn said:
You and Fry need to go to a home game against a BT team and do a head count. I have been a season ticket holder as a grad student and a young guy, then raised kids and worked lots of hours before coming back for Alfraud, Lackluster, and now Fran. The blue hair thing is a flat out myth. I am old and don’t have much hair at all, but I am not blind. Put up or shut up on the blue hair rant.
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I remember working in a hospital geriatric ward at the time Hayden and Lute were really starting to roll. The Iowa Television Network came on and the 80-somethings were screaming at the tv like banshees when Iowa made a basket.

And during that same time period I was at the UNI-Dome for the high school football playoffs and was yelled at to sit down and shut up by 30 and 40 somethings.

I think the big things of people wanting to sit on their hands at games is difficult to predict. I wonder if there've ever been psychological studies on fans who attend sporting events to have a quiet afternoon/night out?
 
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All of the "we need a new arena" crowd need to consider why Carver was once always packed and was very loud. The building hasn't changed, the product and the people paying to watch that product have. Those are the areas that need to be worked on.
 
sioux34 said:
All of the "we need a new arena" crowd need to consider why Carver was once always packed and was very loud. The building hasn't changed, the product and the people paying to watch that product have. Those are the areas that need to be worked on.
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That's part of the problem. Expectations change and the building hasn't.

The people paying to watch that product don't want to wait 45 mins for an ice cream or to take a piss anymore. Students don't want to go because it isn't as fun as Pokemon Go or watching Squid Game on Netflix.

If you put students courtside like other schools it would probably be worth it to go for a lot of students.

If you had an arena with 2-3 decks and a concourse halfway up where you could take a leak and not miss 2 quarters of the basketball game you paid a couple hundred bucks to watch with your family it'd make it more appealing to fans too.

Can't do any of those things without a new arena.
 
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